SPOWs in the Charlestown/Boston area

This timeline is an effort to identify and understand the lives of the Scottish prisoners of war who initially resided in Charlestown and then moved out to Boston and nearby areas.

We welcome any additional information.

December 1650: The Unity arrives in Charlestown at the Massachusetts Bay Colony

1653: Goodman Courser (possibly Hercules Corser?) received 17s from John Gifford* to be given to “Mr Webb** being for diett and other Expences by ye Scotts at Boston” 1

1654: “In 1654, the Middlesex County Court in Charlestown ordered that: “Daniel Blacke Scotchman servant to Mr. Wilton Simes, being lawfully convicted for assaulting & beating his master, is by this Court committed to prison, until further order of Court.”[27] Simes was probably the son of Charlestown’s minister, Zechariah Symmes, one of the town’s most prominent citizens. The Symmes family farm, covering much of present-day Winchester, was located near the corner of Cambridge Farms where William Munro must have worked, and Blacke undoubtedly labored there cutting hay in the meadows.[28] ¹b.